According to data published by popular platform Whale Alert that tracks large cryptocurrency transfers and shares their details on the X/Twitter social media network, spreads the word about a big XRP move spotted over the past 24 hours.
With this massive transfer, nearly twenty million U.S. dollars worth of XRP were sent to a major cryptocurrency exchange.
Meanwhile, the XRP price has printed a notable rise within the last 24 hours.
Millions of XRP on their way to Bitstamp
Per a tweet published by the aforementioned source, an anonymous wallet owner transferred a total of 27,700,000 XRP. This amount of Ripple-affiliated cryptocurrency was evaluated at $17,264,639 when the transfer was made nearly 17 hours ago.
The transaction was made to Bitstamp; however, the real initiator of it seems to be the blockchain decacorn Ripple Labs – the sender wallet is related to this company, according to the Bithomp XRP Ledger explorer. Thus, Ripple sold $17.2 million worth of XRP. In the meantime, over the past 24 hours, the XRP price demonstrated a notable 4.81% rise followed by a small decline earlier today. At the time of this writing, XRP is exchanging hands at $0.63244 per coin on the Bitstamp cryptocurrency exchange.
Ripple releases billion XRP and locks part of it back
As a new year and a new month started, Ripple blockchain heavyweight conducted a programmed release of an astounding billion XRP from escrow. This practice started in 2017, when Ripple decided to support XRP liquidity on the cryptocurrency market, and it has been releasing one billion coins each month since then. These XRP releases on Ripple's part are expected to stop once they have sent out all the 55 billion XRP set aside especially for this.
However, once each new billion XRP is unleashed, 700 million or 800 million XRP usually get sent back and locked in escrow until the next month comes.
This time, on Jan. 1, Ripple unlocked an impressive billion XRP in three transfers, carrying 500 million, 400 million and 100 million XRP each, worth $305,711,372, $244,569,098 and $61,142,274 in fiat.
On exactly the same day, a massive 500 million XRP and 300 million XRP were returned to escrow and locked there until the next time.